Federation
The United Terran Federation, known generally by both those in it and outside it as either just the Federation or the Feds, is the largest governing body in known space. Its inception hails back to the early days of Earth, a union of governments that began with the UN and ended with every nation (except North Korea) uniting under a single governing entity. Upon discovery of the common FTL drive two centuries ago, the Federation quickly expanded to cover a sizable portion of the Milky Way, at least compared to FTL engine tech at the time, which required months to get from one system to the next and took enormous amounts of power. This process took 68 years. 134 years on, the Federation is generally regarded as the safest place for the average citizen. It's far from perfect, with political corruption running rampant, abusive cops being overzealous in their efforts to stop piracy, officials swayed by plenty of corporate payoffs, and mass surveillance of civilians via cameras and wiretaps making many feel uncomfortable under the Federation's ever vigilant electronic eye. These issues have driven plenty to leave and find their own fortune away from the "freedom and liberty" the Feds bring, but on the whole a Federation citizen will rarely want for food, shelter, or work. The Federation is governed under a council system, where each planet elects one representative per 10,000 people in an instant-runoff voting system. Each representative is given one vote in the Federation Representative Council, in which decisions that affect the Federation as a whole such as tax levies, contracts, and Federation-wide laws are passed. Individual planets have their own individual systems for governing the planet on a local level. The Federation Navy is the best in the business, with an extremely sturdy custom ship design featuring durable hull plating and a powerful front facing forcefield generation system that allows for Navy craft to hold their own against assaults from ships much more powerful than they are. The Federal Navy Academy program is again top shelf, training crewmembers of excellent quality. Top ranking members from the Academy will go on to join the Federation's Special Operation Force, the elite of the Federation Navy. Security in Federation-governed systems is tight, and as such most Federation planets are completely safe both in orbit and on the ground. On the other hand, the Federation cares little for those outside its confines, willingly bombarding entire pirate-governed cities in the Outer Rim from orbit. Although it wasn't always this way, the Federation became extremely wary of pirate groups following the Libertas War with the Compact, and as such the task of stopping pirate groups is treated as the utmost priority by the Federation government. Piracy is not tolerated in any manner by the Feds, and a conviction on piracy charges is punishable by life imprisonment or summary execution. For all their strength, however, the reaches of this "Bastion of Civilization" can only be spread so far, leaving a galactic majority of planets ungoverned and ripe for colonization by freedom-seeking Independents, renegade Pirates, and fortune-seeking Mercenaries. The Federation's capital world is the planet of New Terra. Don't ask about Old Terra.